


Yet They Shall Not Break

by Vitreous_Humor



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 14:56:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4105051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vitreous_Humor/pseuds/Vitreous_Humor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being an Account of the Life and Times of Madara Surana, the Hero of Ferelden, Commander of the Grey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A is For Archdemon

The first time he saw the archdemon, truly saw it without the wings given by nightmares, Madara almost burst into tears.

“Are you afraid, Warden?” asked Loghain, speckled in blood and panting for breath. It wasn't a taunt, not exactly.

“I've killed dragons before,” Madara said. “I've killed breeding darkspawn mothers, and I've killed golems who remember the Ancient Age.”

Of course he didn't mention the humans, the dwarves, the elves and the kossith he had killed. They weren't the ones he would remember, or at least that's what he thought then, on the bare edge of seventeen and staring up at Fort Drakon. 

“I'm not afraid,” he said. 

He didn't think he would be able to explain it to Loghain, that mix of exhaustion and wild grief. It had birthed the blight, but in almost every way that mattered, it had birthed him as well. It was more a parent to the man he was now than a forgotten mother in Denerim or the Circle caregivers. In a few months, if Morrigan was correct, it would be his child as well.

For a mage reared with no real concept of family, it was a little overwhelming. 

“All right,” he said. “Let's see if we can kill an archdemon.”


	2. B is for Broodmother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first rule he made was that there would be no women allowed into the Ferelden Grey Wardens. He had liked doomed Mhari, and he loved Sigrun like a sister, but when he sat down as the Warden Commander and not as a mage who Grey Wardens happened to listen to, that was the first thing he put down on paper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What the hell does the Warden Commander do with the knowledge that anyone who wanders into the Deep Roads can turn into the enemy?

When the Blight was out of his blood, or as much as it ever would be, and when he finally understood there was more to being a Gray Warden than running half-mad across the length of Ferelden over and over again, Madara sat down in Amaranthine and began changing the rules.

The first rule he made was that there would be no women allowed into the Ferelden Grey Wardens. He had liked doomed Mhari, and he loved Sigrun like a sister, but when he sat down as the Warden Commander and not as a mage who Grey Wardens happened to listen to, that was the first thing he put down on paper. 

Sigrun came looking for him as soon as she heard of this plan, of course.

“You got some nerve, salroka,” she said, appearing by his side one night. One moment there was nothing, and the next there she was. 

“I've heard that before,” he said, continuing to read.

“I heard about you. You fought beside a two witches, a bard, and a golem, all female. What've you got against girls?”

“I like girls just fine,” he said. “They've got no place in the Deep Roads.”

Sigrun's laugh was thick and rich like Antivan coffee. Suddenly, there was a blade at Madara's throat.

“Say that again, salroka. Come on, I dare you.”

He was so still that she wondered if he had heard at all. She was thinking about needling her dagger just a little deeper, to find out for certain sure if he bled or not (there were rumors that he didn't), but then he turned to her. 

“No one should be down there.”

“When the darkspawn are pounding on the door and asking for their place at the table? We all fucking show.” 

“They're not doing that now,” he pointed out. 

She snorted.

“Spoken like a true surfacer. Right now, the darkspawn are closest to the surface. You beat them down, but you lot never beat them back. That's our job, and believe me, no one's checking in my knickers to see what I'm packing when I'm in the muck.”

He was quiet for a long time.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked, his voice quiet and oddly toneless.

“Let the women in. Let them join up. Give them a chance to do their part, get the fuck off the farm, dodge the gallows and see the world. Same as you would for anyone else.”

He shrugged. 

“All right.”

Sigrun stood there, staring at him for a moment. He had to clear his throat pointedly before she pulled the blade away.

“All right? I admit, I didn't expect that.”

Madara smiled, and she remembered something she had heard about his time in Orzammar, trying to recruit allies. There was a story that had some legs for a while that when given the choice between Harrowmont and Bhelan that he had chosen the former simply because his house was closer. She dismissed it as silly gossip, but now, possibly having changed the course of Grey Warden history just by asking, she wondered.

“No one should be down there,” he repeated. “I wasn't thinking things out. I'm sorry. Thank you.” 

The new rule instead became that when a Grey Warden heard the calling he or she and the Warden Commander would journey some ways into the Deep Roads together before the Warden Commander returned alone. It was meant to be a sign of respect and to remind the Warden Commander that after all, his duty was to each and every recruit. Madara truly believed so. 

It was a good five years before Madara had to undertake that duty himself. The man was an Orlesian, caught by the calling while delivering a message from Val Royeaux. He looked grateful when Madara told him about the rule in Ferelden, thanking the Warden Commander with dignity and relief. 

Madara came back out just a day later, his hands smelling like smoke. They had met some darkspawn, he said. He said there had been a battle. The Orlesian Grey Warden died well, and he wrote as much to the man's own commander.

He came back to Amaranthine, where Ogrhen wanted to buy him a drink, where Sigrun told him that being dead wasn't so bad, really. Nathanial was awkwardly silent as he always was, but he came to sit next to Madara for a while as the Warden Commander wrote diligently in the log book.

“I'm glad he died well,” Nathaniel said finally.

Madara said nothing. He had been killing people for what felt like a very long time, and he wasn't sure that any of them had died better than any others.


End file.
